Finally in the Groove

Sooo... I know I've been absolutely terrible about blogging, but we're finally through with moving for at least two years (if things go as planned) and I don't feel like sitting down to write is a daunting task!

We made it to Twentynine Palms unscathed, and with two dogs still alive and well, so I'd say that's good. When we got here we moved into an apartment off base that had a fenced yard, so Gunner and Carolina were super happy about that. I never really got up the energy to totally unpack, knowing we'd be moving again in a few months, which drove Jordan totally crazy, but it was still a pretty nice place to live. It was all tile flooring, which we thought would be great for the dogs, but it ended up being such a hassle! Anyway, when we got out here and on the waiting list for on-base housing, they told us it would be 6-9 months before we could get a house. Imagine our surprise when we got one in only 3!

29... Sometimes it can be really beautiful!

So now we're on base, trying to get finished with the unpacking and settled into our home. Since being in 29 we've acquired a house full of furniture (gone are the days of my hodge podge furniture from college times), our very own washer and dryer, and a renewed love for air conditioning! :) One weird thing about living in the desert is a device called a swamp cooler. It's not too bad as a replacement for AC, unless you have humidity, in which case it no longer works. The week of July 4th, we had thunderstorms all week! It was really strange for the desert, and also really hot since we had no way to cool our home. Yet another reason we are so glad to be on base now!

Jordan is working, working, working. He's currently the S-4 Alpha, which doesn't really mean a lot to me when I hear it. The S-4 part means logistics (his job is actually normally held by a logistics officer), and the Alpha part is a long way to shorten assistant. Leave it to the Marine Corps to make things confusing. Hopefully when they get back from deployment, which is approaching rapidly, he'll get out of the S-4 shop and into a company where he can lead a platoon. Fingers crossed and prayers prayed for him, please!

Several people have asked for an update on Jordan's friend who was injured. As far as I know he's doing well, and is expected to have a full recovery soon. Thank you so much to all the prayer warriors out there! That is definitely the scariest aspect of military life, and prayers are sometimes all you have to combat combat.

I have gotten a job in optics. It's really nice to be back in my field, doing what I know. My job is really great and I'm really enjoying it so far. The people I work with are awesome, and it's only part time so I still have time to volunteer and enjoy my life outside work. Another cool thing about it is that I was initially hired just to cover for a girl who was going on maternity leave. She's coming back to work (so I won't have a job anymore) in the middle of August, which is perfect timing for us to fulfill our pre-deployment plans. The good news is that her husband got orders to Pendleton in December (so I'll have my job again!), which is perfect timing for my month-long trip back to the east coast for the holidays! The only worrisome thing about it is now that we live on base, my commute will be about 10 miles, whereas I was only travelling less than a mile before. So we'll see, but I'm pretty sure it will be worth it.

The dogs are doing really well, too! We are working on hoarding some money away right now so that we can fence in our yard. It's a really large yard, but on base housing doesn't come with a fence, so it's either leash your dogs any time you take them outside, or put up a fence. Our dogs have always been off-leash dogs, so trying to walk them on a leash is interesting to say the least!

We've been making a lot of friends here, which is so awesome! Jordan is very fortunate that two of his close friends (one from The Citadel and one from TBS) have also gotten stationed here. We see them as often as we can, and I really like both of them too, so it's nice. I've gotten to know some of the other lieutenants' wives, and they're all so great! I really love all the ladies I've met from the unit, and am making some really good friendships with them. I have also stumbled upon a women's Bible Study, which I've been going to for several weeks. The other ladies in the group are all so nice, and have been an excellent resource for Marine life (many of them are spouses of retirees), and source of companionship outside that.

We've gotten to do some fun things since we've been here, too! Memorial Day weekend we took a trip to LA to just get away for an evening. It was a lot of fun, but so expensive! I had always heard it was, but I certainly didn't expect it to be as expensive as it was. Oh well, it was money well spent, because we had a great time! We also went a few weeks ago to Rochester, NY area for one of Jordan's friends' wedding. It was so beautiful, and we had a really wonderful time. It was awesome to see his friends from Maine, and to take our minds off the desert. :) Don't get me wrong, the desert is great, but it was nice to see a body of water. And plants. And grass. And a thermostat that read a number below 100! Here are some pictures from our travels...


The Hollywood sign!



Us at Mike's wedding

I'm really excited that my mom is coming next week!!! She'll be here Monday to Monday, and I am so looking forward to her visit. The most difficult adjustment to the west side of the US is being far from family, so having a little home here in 29 is going to be such a boost to my morale! It's going to be a really fun week, and we have a lot of fun planned. One cool thing is that we're hosting a Pampered Chef party! I've invited about thirty ladies, and I'm expecting about twenty to actually show up. I think it will be a really fun way to get to know them better, and also a great excuse to eat delicious food!

Anyway, I can't really think of any other updates. Family, prepare yourselves... we're hoping to make our way east in August/September, and we're both so, so excited! We send all our love your way!

Hello, 2011...

Sooo much has been going on since our last post. Jordan has been doing a lot of really cool stuff at work. Me, not so much. :) Doing nothing (my job let me go pre-surgery because I didn't have enough sick hours or qualify for FMLA) isn't nearly as interesting as Combat Engineering.



This is a door Jordan blew in with C4

 There are two types of demolition he's been doing. The first is Military Demolitions, which is the big booms. They do cratering, which is making big holes in the ground, destroying equipment, and breaching obstacles, which is blowing up barbed wire and things like that. The second type is Urban Mobility Breaching, which is "various methods of forcibly entering a building using explosives." They blew holes in walls, broke down doors, blew up windows, and just generally destroyed a town that was built just for that purpose.

This is a hole he blew in the wall!
All they used was detonation cord!

After they did all their demolition stuff they moved on to obstacles. I'm pretty sure there was more than just obstacles, but obstacles is what I heard. :) He's also got four briefs to give during this last month, and I HATE briefs. For the last one, which was on obstacles, he wasn't home until after 1am one of the nights. His mind has been so wrapped up in obstacles, in fact, that the other night he asked me in his sleep if I could "go plant some obstacles" for him since I was "just sitting there." :) I died a little, I laughed so hard!

Jordan & our babies in (what I must now
recognize as) our pitiful bit of snow.

During January we had a TON of snow! We had a lot of fun with it... Well, I had fun because I didn't have to work, so I just ate snow ice cream and played with the dogs. And actually, after seeing all the snow they had in Maine, I guess we didn't have that much. I couldn't find the mailbox in the picture of Nancy's front yard... SIX FEET OF SNOW. I'm really terribly glad I wasn't in Maine for that... Even the idea of having to function in snow gives me hives after all the snow we've had around here.

Jordan in the hot seat. :)

In other interesting J & J news, Jordan finally got the next tattoo he wanted. After quite a bit of debate, some of it heated, we were able to come up with one that both of us liked. It's his body, so I can't say that I had all that much influence, but I had to put my foot down over one that was practically a foot tall. Anyway, the one he went with is one I found, which makes me feel like I done good. :) It's an all black EGA, which is situated right under the USMC he already had on his shoulder. You can't really tell what it looks like all that well from the picture, but it looks really good!



Waiting for anesthesia


Pretty much the biggest item effecting our lives lately is my surgery, which I was finally able to have! The procedure is called a robotic pyeloplasty, and if you click here it explains exactly what they did. The difference is that the information is not from UNC, which is where my procedure was done. Also, the stricture was originally thought to have been caused by a blood vessel crossing my ureter in the wrong place and basically pinching it off. When they got in there, however, they discovered that the blood vessel was fine, my ureter was just extremely narrow. The doctor said he was surprised I still have full function of my left kidney, but praise God, I do. My body built up a lot of protective tissue around my kidney which they ended up having to remove as well, so instead of the two hours it normally takes, my sugery took four and a half. The main thing they left out of the article is that I was upside down for the duration of my procedure! They strap you to the table and then tilt it until you're almost exactly upside down vertically. My mom said that when I came out I looked like "a gigantic white whale." Sounds beautiful, right??

Recovery is going well, although a little slower than I expected. I'm pretty close to back to feeling like myself again. I just can't lift anything over ten pounds, which is a fairly difficult restriction to live with. But hey, that's what they make big muscle-y husbands for, right? The stent comes out March 22nd, and then look out, Cali, here we come! I'm having a hitch installed on my Jeep as soon as the part comes in so we can carry all our stuff, we booked the shipping company to get Jordan's Jeep out there, the hotel reservations are made across the country, and real estate agents have been contacted! Wish us luck; we're going to need it, and as always, we love and miss everyone very much! XOXO

Kidneys and Ureters and Stints, Oh My!

Well, if nothing else the last couple of weeks have been eventful, to say the least. Our holiday season was AMAZING, and also full of surprises. The biggest surprise of all was finding out that Jordan's dad got married back in August. It was a nice surprise but a surprise none the less. We had a wonderful time both in Charleston for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and in Maine for the New Year.

Our biggest topic of conversation, though, has definitely been my recent health problems. On Monday after Christmas, I had some terrible pain in my left side and ended up going into the ER. They did a CT scan and determined that I had a stricture in my ureter. The ureter is basically the tube connecting the kidney and the bladder, and mine has a narrowing not far from where the ureter leaves the kidney. It caused the top of my ureter to back up and swell, and when I saw the scan, it was terrifying! The swollen section was huge, and so was my kidney. So they admitted me to the hospital and inserted a stint between my kidney and bladder, through my ureter, to open the kink and hopefully alleviate my pain. Unfortunately, although the stint did its job, I've had an unpleasant  reaction to the stint.

This coming Tuesday, two weeks after the initial operation, I will go for a scan at Carteret General, where I was admitted last week. The scan will determine the function of my left kidney. My doctor, who I really like, thinks that it's fine, but we're doing the scan just in case. After that I go to Chapel Hill, which is about 2.5 hours away, to meet with another surgeon, who will perform my surgery after a consult. He'll go in laproscopically and cut out the portion of my ureter that is kinked, then reattach the normal portions together. It's pretty terrifying since I've never been admitted to a hospital before this issue, but I just want to get better. Anyway, I can use all the prayers and positive thoughts I can get. We miss our family terribly, and hope to see everyone sooner than later. I'll keep everyone posted on my condition. All our love!